I Do This I Do That: Chapter 30

XXX. I Do This I Do That

Tuan's car crept along the empty city streets as the sun rose above eastward apartment complexes and quiet boxy businesses in rows. We were all quiet now, and I listened to the hum of the old engine starting and stopping between the street lights. Tuan tapped his finger on the steering wheel and Wheeler made puffs of fog with his breath on the passenger window glass. We were heading to a bus station. Life was quietly stirring and waking on the sidewalks and streets around us, and the promise of a new day felt familiar.
"Where are we going?" Wheeler asked.
"Chicago, I guess." I muttered.

The station was closed, so Tuan said goodbye and we planned to waste time with a walk or a nap on a bench. Tuan's goodbye was warmer than we deserved, and this strangeness stuck with me. He meant all of his words as he patted Wheeler on the back and wished us the best. I gave him a hug and looked deep into his eyes. I saw love and craziness and a bit of confusion. He waved amicably out the window as he sped away.

I wanted orange juice so we walked to the convenient store on the corner from the bus station and devised ways to steal the juice, and maybe some bread or cookies, too. The bell of the door welcomed us as we walked in, eliciting the tired looking attendee to make a quiet note of our presence from behind the register. He was slobbish and dull looking. He gave us a nod then looked down towards his blue vest and whatever opening duties he was obligated to attend.

Wheeler motioned me coolly to divide into another aisle. He took an orange juice from the cooler and walked with a jazzy trot down the snack aisle, eyeing the attendant nonchalantly from over the edge. He put the juice in his pocket and quickly grabbed a box of cheese crackers and pressed them into his shirt. I watched awkwardly and suspiciously near the magazine rack. He shuffled towards the bathroom hallway and grabbed my arm as he pushed me into the bathroom and locked the door behind us.

"Breakfast is served." He whispered, covertly.

He took out the juice and drank exactly half in a few quick and desperate gulps. I drank the rest in a similar way as he opened the crackers and ate two at a time. I felt out of words, out of ideas, out of my mind. The day and time and place of my life mangled together into one disastrous scene. I could have been anywhere in any bathroom by any bus station in the country. I felt desperate for connection or feeling, and suddenly, before I registered this burst of desire, I was taking it out on Wheeler. I grabbed his gaunt cheeks and kissed him ravenously. He pulled me close to him and suddenly we were animalistic. His mouth was dry and he tasted like hot ash. He was bony and biting my lips and squeezing my hips with an intensity that catapulted us up against the wall. I wanted anything in that moment, and nothing at all.

The sex lasted only a few minutes, and when it was over we both took deep breaths and cleared our throats. Wheeler ate another cracker and zipped up his pants. We said nothing as I unlocked the door and walked outside. The attendee looked befuddled, but seemed to lack the gall to investigate into our behavior.

Outside more life stirred on the morning street, and something odd happened.

Wheeler walked out of the convenient store behind me, looking a bit mad and bug-eyed. His hands were in his pockets and he looked at me hysterically for just a moment, and then suddenly he began running down the sidewalk. I watched him run away into the distance, turning a corner at the next block without slowing his pace or looking back.

I stood dumbfounded, watching the street for a moment.

I walked to the bus station and bought a ticket for Chicago. I was almost completely out of money now, but I wasn't worried. I had nothing behind me and nothing before me as the heavy bus turned the corner out of the Minnesota bus station. The seats were filled with quiet strangers, sleeping or peeking out into the passing countryside.

The small trees and scattered houses looked bright under the ever rising sun. Fields of wheat and grass and rows of swaying trees dashed quickly passed the warm window. I thought of everything and nothing all at once. Time dragged on peacefully with the forward motion of the big ugly bus. Maybe I should move, I thought. Maybe I should visit home. Maybe I should get off at the next stop. Maybe I should sleep. I closed my eyes and soon heard the bus bellow and clamor as it tilted and hampered into a rest stop. I heard the strangers rise and shuffle off the bus. Click clack click clack click clack, the heavy steps descended and ascended the bus. I do this, I do that, I do this, I do that, their shoes echoed beyond me, out the open windows, into the risen sun.


THE END

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 29: Blue and Green and Purple and Pink

XXIX.

I opened my eyes and saw Cait's face above me. She was holding the back of my head over a faucet and pouring warm water on my forehead. She was wearing a clean white t-shirt and her uncombed dull brown hair fell in pieces onto my face. She had that same tricky grin on her face that she did in the picture of her as a young girl.

"Hey," I said.
"Shhhhh," she answered. "Just keep your head back." She smiled calmly.
"Okay," I said.
"Tell me about your favorite colors." She pet my hair and I cooed back like a baby.
"Blue..."
"And?"
"Green..."
"Yes?"
"Purple.."
"Okay?"
"Pink.."
"Like a sunset?"
"Yes."
"And?" She tilt my head back further and water splashed into my eyes. Her voice was cool and pacifying, in a way I'd never heard her speak.
"Black." I closed my eyes tightly as the water became hotter and the pressure increased. I tried to move my head up from her hand but couldn't. She was pulling my hair back down into the tub. I opened my eyes and saw her bright smile and faded eyes watching me struggle from her grasp. I pulled up my head again against her resistance.
"Shhhh," she said again.

Now she moved my head directly under the faucet. The water crashed into my eyes and nose and mouth. I spit it out in struggled breaths. I dug my nails into her warm arms and peddled my head left and right, attempting to escape the water.
"Shhhh," I heard her say again. "Think about the colors," she said. "Blue...and green..and purple...and pink.." She pulled my hair down further into the tub.

Suddenly she let go of my hair, letting my head drop to the bottom of the tub. She pushed my legs in after me and I dropped in like a dummy. The water pressure lightened and I heard the distinct sound of creaking and diminishing footsteps. I felt the steps with an intensity as they faded away, like each foot on the ground was lodged directly onto my spine.

I opened my eyes and there was Tuan sitting on the edge of the tub, with a detachable shower head in one hand and a beer can in the other. He took a long drink from the can and kept the shower head steady in my direction. He glanced at me with a look of happy inertia. It was clear from a certain weirdness and wisdom and ease in his eyes that anything odd we'd experience tonight would be merely average in the great scope of his life.

"Cait," I said.
"Hey!" He said brightly.
Wheeler walked in looking high and holding a large blanket.
"We did it," he said. "We found it."
"Where is she?" I asked.
"Who knows," said Wheeler. "Not here."
"I saw her," I said.
"Me too. That was definitely her in the picture. You hit your head hard there in the kitchen. You woke up the dogs, man!"
"She was here," I argued.
"Hacket hasn't seen her in 5 years, yo. And since you passed out things have been gettin' a little weird here. The old man's back in bed but we need to go. She's not here and he doesn't want anything to do with it."
Tuan turned off the faucet and finished his beer.

The two insisted on carrying me out of the Hacket house wrapped inside the blanket like an adult baby. I felt too dizzy to disagree, and we piled into Tuan's car once more, rounded the bend passed Cait's family home, and headed back into the city.

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 28: Mouse Guts

XXVIII.

The naked man was holding a flashlight, and as he neared us he stumbled twice into the narrow hallway walls. His footsteps creaked on the wooden floor and he swore manically under his breath. "What the..fuck. What time is it. Goddamn it. Fuck." He focused the light through the screen door and peered into our lit faces, squinting.

"Jesus Christ. What is it?" He said. His voice was both gentle and raspy. His face was dark and tight as though he'd spent days in the sun. He had a head of grey hair and smoker's eyes and lips.
"Do you have a daughter named Cait Hacket?" Wheeler asked, unapologetically.
"Yeah? Why? Who are you?"
"Our friend, Cait Hacket, disappeared from us in Chicago a few days ago. We're trying to track her down. Is there anyway we can see a picture of your daughter?"
"Christ. It's the middle of the goddamn night!"
"We're sorry to wake you, but we came a long way and we really need to find our friend." Wheeler seemed more coherent than I expected.

 It suddenly occurred to me how odd the three of us looked standing on this small slanted porch in the middle of the night. Tuan's perm was wild and disheveled from the windy drive, and I was filthy and skinny and pale from the trip. Wheeler seemed coherent for the circumstances, but his stark features and bug-eyed adrenaline  must have appeared a bit psychotic to this tired naked man on the other side of the screen. We were, after all, three strangers to him and each other, hungry for answers, on a journey of nonsense and disillusion.

"Goddamn it. Hold on a second," he said, closing the door and dipping into a room on the right side of the hallway. He turned on a light and re-approached the door wearing a long navy bathrobe.

He opened the screen door and led us inside. The house was cramped and smokey. There were 4 dark rooms off the hallway and a bright stairwell leading down. He led us down the creaky stairwell, lighting a cigarette and leaving smoke in our path.

The downstairs was the kitchen and living area of the house. Mr. Hacket sat down on a stool at the kitchen island. He didn't turn on any lights as he smoked, and the room was filled with shadows from the lit stairwell. The ceiling was low, which sort of created a sense of pressure and heaviness upon the house. The room was seemingly tidy, and there seemed to be animals everywhere. Two dogs slept on the kitchen tiles, and there were 3 cats eating on the island by Mr. Hacket. Another cat jumped through a broken sliding screen and waited to be fed. The cat jumped on the counter and dropped a dead mouse from it's mouth onto the counter. Mr. Hacket looked at the mouse and looked away, blowing smoke into the room.

 "We haven't heard from Cait in years," he said, breaking the silence. "She left home about.. 5 years ago, hasn't been back since."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Christ. Who knows? She always seemed to be pissed off about something. We weren't surprised when she left. She's always been.. a bit strange."
"Where did she go?" said Wheeler.
"How the hell would I know? She left one day...didn't say goodbye." This sentence sent him into a coughing fit for approximately 2 minutes. He struggled out of the cough then opened the door and spit onto the back porch. He took a relieved breath and sat back down.
"You've never tried to find her?"
"No, no. Not really. She always wanted to do her own thing and I stayed out of her way. She's an adult. What she's doing is her business," he said.
"Is she your only child?"
"Yeah."
"And it doesn't bother you that you don't know where she is?" Wheeler asked, with a dash of intensity and judgement.
"Why the hell should it?" He was becoming agitated.

Tuan was sitting on a couch in the shadows with his head tilted back. He seemed to be asleep or falling asleep. The cats were now eating the mouse on the counter and Mr. Hacket pet the back of one as it competed for pieces of the tiny dead animal.

He got up to find a picture of Cait. There weren't any visible family photos hanging on the walls. There was a rifle and a model sailboat above a fireplace mantle in the center of the room, and the brick walls were empty in the dim of the moonlight. As Mr. Hacket left down a dark hallway, Wheeler grabbed my hand and watched the cats finish pulling apart the limbs and innards of the mouse. The feverish look in his eye was ascending as Mr. Hacket walked lazily towards us with a picture in his hand.

"Here," he said, handing us the picture as if it was nothing. As if she were nothing. It seemed clear that no matter who this girl was, our Cait or just his, he had no intention of finding her.

Wheeler held the picture and I flicked on the kitchen light switch. It was a picture of a young girl leaning against the trunk of a tree. She was slightly chubby and tired looking with a goofy grin on her face. It was suddenly clear to both of us. This was our Cait.

Suddenly the sight of her young eyes and devious smile made me dizzy. My heart beat sped up and I felt weak and nauseous from the stirs of smoke and cat fur, mouse guts and dirty dogs. I felt the weight of the low ceiling and the weight of the picture in my hand. I looked up at Wheeler. His mouth was moving but I couldn't hear any sounds. The room became dark and I felt myself slipping out of reality. I saw a motion of black and suddenly I felt the cold of the kitchen tile on my head. Silence.

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 27: He was Naked

XXVII.

It appeared we had exited the city part of this city district and Tuan seemed small gripping the wheel. He looked dimly into the beaming headlights, careful to move right when the road winded such, and left when the road winded such, too.  Wheeler looked at Tuan but watched me in his peripheral view. I hung my head against the seat by the open window. I breathed in the wind and watched trees and low buildings zoom past into a moving scene of black and dark green.

No one spoke now but it sort of felt as though Tuan was really with us. I didn't feel as if we were merely hitching a ride. I closed my eyes and imagined Tuan being with us back at Lake Michigan with Cait. I could see him standing in the distance of the shore, smoking a cigarette and waving towards me as I watched him look at ease beneath the moon light. He would have laughed a bit at Cait and Wheeler kissing in the waves, I thought.

After an unidentifiable amount of time I could hear the sullen voices of Tuan and Wheeler. Suddenly the car stopped and I jolted from my half-dream. We were on a dark dirt road that winded left and descended to a hill. In the curve of the road was a beaten red picket fence that seemed weathered and old. A mailbox by the fence read "Hacket" in the bright of the headlights. "We're here," said Wheeler.

Outside the stars welted and boomed above us, then diminished in the bright of the busy distance. I hadn't seen stars this bright in a very long time, and suddenly the scene of it all made me feel like I took a drink from the hose. The red fence lined a large yard that slanted down. A blue house that seemed to be falling backwards a bit sat in the middle of the hill. The lights were off from inside the small vertical windows by a screen door, and rows and rows of trees lined the right side of a home-made paved driveway.

None of us noted the time or pondered over the appropriateness of our arrival. The endurance of our mission was unspoken and understood, and if this wasn't the right Hacket house we would move on to the next one. I had no hankering for sleep or stopping. I was going to the last two Hacket houses without pause. At the time I hadn't wondered or cared about what would happen after this night. I didn't assume we wouldn't find our Cait. I just began to descend the dark driveway in silence.

I felt a bit of a chill in those steps from the enormity and depth of the woods on our right. I could feel, or at least imagine the feel, of dozens of pairs of eyes peeking between the brush and thick branches at us as we walked. I could sense, or at least fantasize a sense, that critters or ghosts or wild barefoot children in dirty nightgowns were licking their lips and concocting schemes of torture for the fresh flesh in their territory.

There was no electric doorbell on this house, but an old brassy looking bell hung just eye-level of the screen. Wheeler pulled the bell back and forth three times and the chimes seemed louder than we'd all expected. Tuan stood a little straighter at the sound.

15 seconds passed.

Nothing.

Wheeler rang the bell 4 more times with a bit more muscle, and I took a deep breath waiting for life to emerge.

Then, from inside the house a small light turned on, followed by the sound of a deep and sleepy cough.

A man walked into the hallway from a room on the left, and as he moved closer to the front door it became clear; he was naked.

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 26: What the Fuck Am I Doing Here

XXVI.


Soon the light faded beneath the square brown fence behind the house. I peeked out the window in the midst of conversation and watched the sun rays whisper slowly into the earth. As the sun fell deeper and deeper into the wooden cracks of the fence, Tuan and Wheeler sank further into the artful chaos of conversation. Tuan was becoming more difficult to understand as the PBR amplified his Vietnamese accent, yet Wheeler deciphered the anecdotes with stupefying ease. Moments of laughter and emotional silence bounced between the mustard colored walls, and I sank into the linoleum kitchen, deflated.

My mind stumbled around the day and days that had passed. I could hear Vietnamese Cait Hacket sifting through drawers and picking up heavy objects and heaving them onto different parts of the floor upstairs. What the hell was she doing up there?  I couldn't help but think of her as an imposter, as though she was at fault for sharing the name of our missing Cait. I imagined the real Cait unzipping from the inside of this Vietnamese costume. She'd probably just have a secret smile on her face as she would step out of the plump suit and regain her image as the Cait I knew. She would wonder why I worried. She would strike up a joke or commit herself to a new scheme.

I excused myself from the kitchen and walked down the narrow dark hallway to the bathroom. A dangling chain triggered a single bulb light on the ceiling, which was accompanied by a fan that sounded like an alarm that lacked urgency. I could see my reflection in the high rectangular mirror. My skin looked like paper against the deep green walls, and my hair hung in tired strings loosely around my face. It had been a few days since I'd seen myself, and I almost didn't recognize my own face. I wondered if things truly changed that fast, or if it was just the way I saw things that did.

Next to the bathroom door was a small staircase leading up towards the loud thumps and heaves of Vietnamese Cait. I walked lightly on the wooden stairs and my feet squeaked into the old boards, "rick rack, rick rack, rick rack." Cait must have heard me coming towards her. She peeked her head out into the dark hallway from inside a lit room and screamed something in Vietnamese. She turned and saw me.

"Oh. It's you," she said.

Her voice was a bit kinder now in a way that seemed to surprise both of us as it escaped her lips.

"I'm moving my furniture around." She leaned against the doorway and took a tired breath. "Want to see?"

"Sure," I said. I followed her into the room.

There was a large bed with a heavy black frame on an angle in the middle of the room, mid-move. A dresser was nearly blocking the entrance way, and piles of clothes and knickknacks lined the walls in chaotic graves.

"Wow, this is a lot of stuff," I said.
"Yeah it is. It's really heavy, too, you know. Well the bed is. And the dresser. My dad bought this bed for me a few years ago, and the dresser was my mom's."

I didn't know what to say. She seemed suddenly too comfortable.

"All of this stuff over here was my mom's, too. She was going to throw it away." She put her hands on her hips and looked down onto the piles. I nodded my head. I could see some black and white framed pictures, piles of books, and a delicate jewelry box amongst the things she signaled to be her mother's.

"Want to give me a hand quickly?" She walked towards the bed.
"If you could just pick that side up and move it over here, like this," she said, motioning towards a position on the opposite side of the room.

We moved the bed to where she wanted it, and then we moved the dresser, too.  I was beginning to fear that she'd ask me to help organize all of her things on the floor, too, so I tried to slyly slip back downstairs.

"I think I'll get another beer," I said. "Do you want one too?"
"Oh no thanks I don't drink. I'm drunk after just a sip of a cocktail," she said, smiling as though she'd expected a response.

I said nothing and quickly set for the door. Before exiting I turned once more towards her, waiting, rather fantastically, for my Cait to jump out from inside this impostor. No costume was shed though, and the Vietnamese Cait stood next to her newly arranged furniture, sweating and purveying the new surroundings.

Downstairs the conversation had become intimate. Tuan was clearly weeping, despite a large smile on his face, and Wheeler was slapping the table vigorously with his open palm shouting, "That's FUCKING right! FUCKING right!"

"I think we should go..." I announced with a tone of suggestion. Suddenly I felt an anxiety, a pressure, a claustrophobia. I felt as though we were running out of time in this place. I felt like the time and the mission were slipping away and I couldn't bear to be in this linoleum kitchen. I could no longer handle the mustard walls. Nothing about this place gave dignity or purpose to why we were in Minnesota to begin with. My heart began to speed up and I slipped out the sliding door and into the fenced in back yard. The trees beyond the fence soared above it and shifted in soft chills, shaking the leaves into a frenzy that made me truly want to fly. I knelt down and touched the palms of my hands to the tips of the soft grass. "God. What the fuck am I doing here," I said to myself.

I heard the slider open and there was Wheeler smiling psychotically. "Tuan's gonna drive us to Hacket house number 2. I filled im' in. I told him about the whole goddamn issue. He's gonna drive us there and it's cool," he said. I felt the breath escape my chest in bursts without control. "Okay," I said. We got into a small white car with Tuan and sped down the dark ugly street.

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 25- But That's Okay

XXV.

The first Hacket house was off-white and square, with a shallow roof and tall mangy grass in the yard. The block was stuffed and squeezed with cardboard looking shacks that each faded like tired dogs into the dirt. None of the buildings seemed like homes from the looks of things, and I imagined the properties were giant burdens to the owners, and shelters of strange moments and fleeting chaos. We smoked and smoked and smoked before working up the courage to approach the porch.

Wheeler knocked vigorously and someone ran to the door and it sprung open. A small Asian man in high-waisted light jeans and a loose button up shirt squinted into the sun, measuring us carefully.

"Yes? You here for facial? It ten o'clock. Facial at eleven thirty. You come back."

He began to close the door.

Wheeler interjected. "Wait, wait. Sir, we're actually here looking for our friend. You have a daughter named Caitlin? Caitlin Hacket?"

"Yes. Cait? She here. She watch TV. You come in?" He held the door open and we walked into a narrow foyer behind him. He was a short man with a mop of curly black hair that sat just below his ears. He had it slicked towards the back of his head and it bounced lightly while he moved.

"Leave shoes here," he said.

We took off our shoes and followed him around a corner into a living area. The carpet was soft and brown, and yellow patterned wall paper sprung from the level of our toes and up into the low ceiling. A coiling red interlock of waves twisted together, and the paper vines moved against the yellow walls. The oriental furniture looked rich and delicate, and a hodgepodge of couches and dining room chairs formed a semi-circle around a small boxy television. A robust Asian girl sat low in a plush orange chair.

"These your friends, Cait?" her father said.

"Um.. no?" Her voice was full and American, a generation apart from the choppy English of her father.

He stood erect and talked loudly. "You not Cait's friends? You no here for facial! Why you here?"

"Ah Sir, we're actually looking for a different 'Caitlin Hacket.' We came all the way from Chicago to find her. I'm sorry to bother you guys man, but were just looking for our friend." Wheeler's voice was harsh and smoky, and he looked British in the light of the room. 

"From Chicago? I live in Chicago once. Ya, I live there ...TEN years ago man!" He held up both hands and all fingers and smiled widely. "Where your friend? She live up here?"

"She used to. She left and we're just trying to find her," I said.

"Okay okay." A loud cell phone rang and he walked away, trailing into a foreign conversation.

"You think that's Japanese?" Wheeler whispered.

"It's Vietnamese, actually," the girl interjected.

"Oh nice," said Wheeler, enthusiastically. "So, Hacket. That's not Vietnamese, right?"

"It's my step mom's last name. She's white." She didn't look at us while she talked, but kept her eyes focused on the TV as she flicked through channels rapidly.

"Ahhh, okay okay. So do you know any other Cait Hackets around here?"

"Nope." She reached down and ate some chips from a bag in the nook of her arm.

Her dad re-entered the room and the two exchanged words in Vietnamese. The conversation became angry and the girl walked away.

"You two want beer? I have Pabst Blue Ribbon? I have Sam Adam?"

We accepted the offer, graciously, and followed the man into the kitchen. "Come, come!" he said.

There was a barber chair in the center of the kitchen floor, and mirrors were placed sporadically on the walls. He opened a can of beer for each of us and we sat down at a metal table in the corner. We introduced ourselves, and the man smiled largely. "I am Tuan," he said.

--

Tuan told us about his life. He told us about the two-week journey he took from Vietnam to America in 1971. We asked idiotic questions, ignorant and oblivious to this thread of tribulation, to a history we had no concept of.

Wheeler sat erect in his chair. Beads of condensation fell from his PBR and  trickled into a cylinder pool on the kitchen table. "That's fucking crazy, man," he said. "That's really fucking crazy. Like, two whole weeks? From fucking Vietnam? It's crazy." His leg tapped lightly on the tile floor, and his eyes scanned Tuan with an edge of fever.

Tuan had a goodness about him that I'd never quite experienced. So many of the people I'd met in my life had fallen flat to me. So many encounters with strangers and acquaintances had never resounded past the moment of formality. Tuan had this heaviness to him that wasn't accompanied by grumbling or tired complaints. He just seemed to be. He told us story after story, some a little lost in translation, some a bit sad, some without having any known point at all.

He told us he had permed his hair since the 80's. He told us his ex-wife was a model in the early 90's and his new wife was a poor cosmetologist. "She's ugly," he said. "But a nice lady." His children were "too American," he said. They didn't understand him and he didn't understand them. He was happy he came here, he said. He'd lived in California and Texas, and Idaho for a short time. He'd divorced his Vietnamese wife in Chicago and moved to Minnesota with Mrs. Hacket and their children.

His youngest daughter was bullied in school and he said that he babied her. "I tell Ginny to do homework? She say- Daddy I love you- and doesn't have to do her homework!" He laughed uproariously in between his stories. "But that's okay," he said. He said that Cait was too fat. She hadn't been that fat before but she's so American, he said. "But that's okay," he repeated.

Tuan was sitting in front of a small square window leading into a fenced in backyard. The sun cast shadows on his face and beamed in to capture dust swimming slowly in the dry air. There was a bird feeder in the yard filled with plants and rain water. The fence around the square plot was high and old looking, and I watched a squirrel balance on the wood grid and bounce playfully in the bright of the sun, disappearing fast into a neighboring lawn. The wholeness of Tuan's voice made each word hold validity that permeated the moment. Even the simplest of his details propelled me into a contemplation of much bigger proportions.

He said that he had a lot of money in Chicago. He'd lost it all in his divorce, which he accepted. "I'm rich, I was rich, I'm poor, I'm rich, I was rich, I'm poor," he said. "The moon changes, but that's okay," he said.

Wheeler asked him more questions about his trip to America.

"We had 1 bowl rice a day on the boat," he told us. "And when you had to take a shit, you leaned over the edge of the boat!" He had a gleaming smile on his face, but it wasn't slightly moronic or arrogant, it was just unburdened, and perhaps innocent.

"People fell in that way! I saw TWO people die," he said. He held up two bold fingers.

"Shit," said Wheeler.

Tuan opened more beers and lined them up on the kitchen table.

"I think about that, man. Dying," said Wheeler. He took a long drink of his PBR and slouched deeper into his chair. "Well, not dying I guess. I just have this fantasy, like, sort of just sneaking out of my skin. Just kind of tip-toeing away from my skin and my bones and my body and stuff. You know? And just floating off as a-- well a blob, or a puff of smoke or whatever. You know what I mean? God that sounds crazy, man. But do you know what I mean? Just sort of escaping. Not into nothingness though- just as me, without... this." He made a circular motion around his body.

Tuan looked thoughtfully at Wheeler for a moment and then burst into a real laugh. I thought about the idea, and I could see a certain appeal in the fantasy. I too, felt somewhat trapped inside my skin sometimes. I hated to agree, but I understood.

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 24

XXIV. Get Your Bruised Butt Up

Something that should terrify me more than any mystery in the world, any stranger on the MegaBus and all of the pending atrocities on full moon nights- is the lapse of time I am faced with the morning after a blackout drunk. On this particular morning, I woke beneath a canopy of scarce branches on a bed of dewy grass. Without possessing anything of remote commercial value, the only assets I really have to keep intact are my legs, my face, and my lungs. My legs were cold and wet, but fine. My face felt blemished, but I could still see and smell and smile. My lungs were working, however they did feel slightly beaten up from an overdose of smoking.

We were in a barren park. The sun was struggling to peak towards the world from behind a few relentless clouds. They were white and sweet looking, but malevolent things. The rays squeaked between the billowed edges, but were constantly rebuffed. I wanted some warmth but there was none to be found. I leaned against the trunk of the tall maple tree and looked out into the empty park. There was a swing set a few hundred yards away. Trees were sporadically planted on beds of wood chips and sod.

The grass had crisp linear patterns in it from careful mowing. I could smell the remnants of the last mow and it made me think of childhood. That creeping feeling of being tiny and dirty, playing outside and taking full breaths of spring air dawned on me, as memories do. I could almost see the mirage of my father in the distance, stooped over and driving our dinky lawnmower forward, sweat dripping down his face and a cigarette hanging from his lips.

I could have died last night, and I really wouldn't have noticed, I thought. Dying seems to be the part of life when every cognitive realization, every part of the brain, every corner of the soul is elevated to a conceptual understanding. Of all the moments and of all the epiphanies, the sensory overloads, dying, I imagine, is the apex. I would have missed the whole hoopla. I would have surpassed the grandiose production and just keeled over, drunk. "I suppose I should thank you, for keeping me around to find out what it all feels like," I said. I was looking up, towards God, or those malevolent clouds, or that poor sun on the offense.

The last thing I do remember is being kicked out of Hobo Sam's. After we concocted the most organic reception of love that I have ever been apart of, we sabotaged it just as fast. The engagement had made Wheeler, that bumbling idiot, palpably irresistible to all of the local ladies. It's disgusting really, the way our humanity pushes us to desire the things we cannot, or should not attain. Moments after our eloquent loop and over dramatic kiss, Wheeler was getting eye fucked from every corner of the bar. It was happening to me too, but the guys weren't as openly disrespectful to each other as the girls happened to be.

The sequence of sabotage began like this...

Tan man walked back over to us and struck up a conversation with me. It was all garbage. More reiterations about how amazing Wheeler and I were. More talk about promotion. More bullshit bullshit recollections of our love. Meanwhile, Wheeler had begun talking to the brunette who had asked us "Why Hobo Sam's?" earlier. At least a half an hour went on like this. I continued to sip drink after drink. As tan man talked, I studied the skin on his face. The dark organ was stretched out in astounding proportions, defying my imagination. I started to look at him like a talking briefcase. I'd laugh where no laugh was due.

After many moments of crap, I left for the bathroom to maybe puke or poop. There were blood stains on the tile, and a great crack down the center of the mirror divided my face into two jagged halves.

I puked a little in the toilet, and assured myself afterwards by saying, "It had to be done." The strange girl who I directed the comment towards offered me a mint from her purse. It was peppermint.

I left the bathroom and walked back towards the bar stools we'd claimed. Tan man was gone, but standing next to my empty stool was Wheeler, making out with the brunette. It was all spit and tongues were everywhere. The only way it could have been more graphic, would have been if he'd ripped off his shirt or lifted her up on top of the bar. The people around them, those who were still remotely coherent, were struck with awe. Some stared intently. Others appeared to have been scanning the room for me, his supposed fiance.

Soon he noticed me standing there, and he gently removed the brunette from his mouth. We had successfully condensed all the melodrama of a long term commitment into the span of two gloriously public hours.
"How could you!" I announced, with calculated gusto that sent a wave of silence through the bar. The words churned in my stomach and I wanted deeply to laugh and laugh and laugh.

"It's okay! It's okay everyone. It's okay. We're not really engaged. We've only known each other a week. It was just a joke! That ring? I bought that ring for a quarter in that machine over there. It's all good everybody! No need to get upset," Wheeler reached for the brunette's arm. She slapped him and the party resumed.

Everything after that is somewhat of a blur. It was definitely not okay, by the standards of everyone who'd spent a buck or shed a tear on our behalf. We were usurped from Hobo Sam royalty, and literally kicked out of the bar. I couldn't tell that morning, but I had a giant bruise on my butt from the kick. After that, we'd evidently wandered intoa park to sleep.


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Wheeler appeared from behind the maple. His hair looked electrocuted, and his face had strands of creases in it from a bed of grass. He looked genuinely homeless, and I was not entirely convinced that he wasn't.
"How's your ass?"
"Sore."
"See what happens when the moon is full?" He sat down next to me.
"Or when you are just a giant fucking idiot, rather."
"Come on...That was incredible! We single handily created love and then crushed it! I feel like my parents."

He pulled out the map from his backpack.
"Honestly I don't have a fucking clue where we are now. We walked for at least an hour after the bar last night, so we're definitely going to have to take a cab or get a ride to Hackett house number one," he said.
"I hope it's our Cait Hackett," I said.
"I kind of hope it's not. I'm not ready to be done with this. I've got nothin' to go home to."
"I just want to find her."
"Well, get your bruised butt up and let's go then." He dusted dirt off his pants and helped me to my feet.